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One of the major twentieth-century European poets, Paul Celan wrote poetry of exceptional linguistic brilliance and intensity drawn from his experiences, particularly of the war years and the loss of his parents in the death camps. In his verse he sought to express 'not only what the experience felt like, but also a sense of living, with comprehension, inside the experience'. WINNER OF THE FIRST EUROPEAN TRANSLATION PRIZE
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Michael Hamburger's translations of Paul Celan were, for years, the only access English-speaking readers had to one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Celan's poetry is absorbing, intricate and difficult, and gives the lie to the critic Theodor Adorno's famous remark that 'To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric'; unlike Adorno, who had left Germany before the second world war, Celan had managed to survive Nazi terror but had also been unable to save his own parents, both of whom were killed. Much of Celan's poetry can be read as part of an attempt to find a way of writing poetry in the wake of the attempt by Nazi Germany to exterminate European Jewry.
Hamburger's versions of Celan were, for years, the only ones available, and translating Celan is a courageous venture in the first place, considering his knotted syntax and intense interest in philology. It now seems that younger translators are willing to have a go, and in some cases bring about in English a more accurate or at any rate an alternative take on the poems; John Felstiner and Iain Fairley have both delivered vivid and commendable takes on Celan's work. (The one essential book so far about Celan's life and work is Felstiner's 'Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew'.) In some cases they improve on Hamburger. Hamburger's version of Celan's most-anthologised poem 'Todesfuge' renders one phrase as 'digging your graves in the breezes', whereas Felstiner prefers the more prosaic 'digging your graves in the air'. The difference may seem trivial, until you consider that those victims of the Holocaust who were incinerated literally were given graves in the air. 'Todesfuge' is a poem that looks like it's full of metaphors - black milk, death being a master from Germany, graves in the air - which in fact aren't metaphors at all, but real events.
Nevertheless, Michael Hamburger's selection of the most crucial poems is still the best one-volume selection of Celan in English, and gives the most generous sampling of this extraordinary poet's range and depth. Any English-speaking lover of poetry needs a copy of this book. Celan's work transcends simple-minded ideas of poetry being 'beautiful' or 'ugly'. It impresses itself upon the mind of the reader like that of few other contemporary poets.
Celan's own life after WW2 was marked by professional success but spiritual distress; he married a gifted artist (Gisele Lestrange), had a son, was given most of the major literary awards that Germany had to offer, but nevertheless, aged 49, he drowned himself in the Seine. His work endures.
Hamburger's versions of Celan were, for years, the only ones available, and translating Celan is a courageous venture in the first place, considering his knotted syntax and intense interest in philology. It now seems that younger translators are willing to have a go, and in some cases bring about in English a more accurate or at any rate an alternative take on the poems; John Felstiner and Iain Fairley have both delivered vivid and commendable takes on Celan's work. (The one essential book so far about Celan's life and work is Felstiner's 'Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew'.) In some cases they improve on Hamburger. Hamburger's version of Celan's most-anthologised poem 'Todesfuge' renders one phrase as 'digging your graves in the breezes', whereas Felstiner prefers the more prosaic 'digging your graves in the air'. The difference may seem trivial, until you consider that those victims of the Holocaust who were incinerated literally were given graves in the air. 'Todesfuge' is a poem that looks like it's full of metaphors - black milk, death being a master from Germany, graves in the air - which in fact aren't metaphors at all, but real events.
Nevertheless, Michael Hamburger's selection of the most crucial poems is still the best one-volume selection of Celan in English, and gives the most generous sampling of this extraordinary poet's range and depth. Any English-speaking lover of poetry needs a copy of this book. Celan's work transcends simple-minded ideas of poetry being 'beautiful' or 'ugly'. It impresses itself upon the mind of the reader like that of few other contemporary poets.
Celan's own life after WW2 was marked by professional success but spiritual distress; he married a gifted artist (Gisele Lestrange), had a son, was given most of the major literary awards that Germany had to offer, but nevertheless, aged 49, he drowned himself in the Seine. His work endures.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It seems rather impertinent to comment on poems such as Celan's when I've only been reading them for a short time. I only do so to encourage anyone who has heard about them, to read them. Celan was a poet who translated the work of Rimbaud, Emily Dickinson and Osip Mandelshtam: and this list gives some indication of where his debts, as a poet, might lie; and may also indicate the breadth of reference that his poetry utlises. Celan was far from being a national poet, both for historical reasons -- he wrote in German, but was not from Germany -- and for poetic reasons: and is neither a poet who is only for German readers. (His influence, to give one example, can be seen in the later poetry of the "late Modernist" J.H. Prynne.)
Michael Hamburger's bi-lingual edition (with German on one page, and translation into English poetry on the other) gives the reader an introduction to Celan.
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